Black Heritage Tour: #8, Blue Moon Cafe

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Smith writes:

8. As you turn right on Drachman you will see a market on your left. This is the location of the dance hall and cafe. Many a musician appeared here. One was Billy Eckstein. This was a popular place in the 1940's called the Blue Moon Cafe and Dance Hall.

Suddenly we were grown up
It was time to go romancing
We would take our favorite girl
To the Blue Moon Ballroom dancing

Model A’s were all the rage
And all the young people our age
Used to cruise down Meyer Street
How I loved that rumble seat

Especially on starry nights
Up to “A” mountain we’d go
To look at all the city lights
It doesn’t seem that long ago

Our first girl, the first kiss
Memories are made of this
I hope you enjoyed the trip
It’s been great to reminisce

From The Days of My Youth by Lalo Guerrero.

Lalo Guerrero passed away earlier this year and was a native Tucsonian, who has been described (by Linda Ronstadt, no less) as "the first great Chicano musical artist".

The University of Arizona has some of Lalo's songs up on the web.

The picture above is from an article with Skip Heller's interview with Lalo:

Let's get out our guitars and play for the people eating breakfast, he suggests. When this happens, the roomful of people suddenly takes serious collective notice. And the vast majority of them, especially the older ones, are pointing and saying "Omigod that's Lalo Guerrero."

(This is restaurant whose regulars include the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beck, and various movie people. The clientele is generally pretty blase about celebrity, so you know Lalo ranks as a legend.)

Even maybe especially in such an informal, intimate setting, Lalo is 110% showmanship, and the set list he improvises consists mostly of his song parodies about food. We play "Tacos For Two" (his "Cocktails For Two" send-up), "I Love Tortillas" (to the tune of "O Solo Mio"), and Mexican Mammas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Busboys". The small audience is delighted and approves loudly. Their enthusiasm couldn't be greater if the Spice Girls had showed up and staged an impromptu wet t-shirt contest.

Guerrero's lyrics are often very pointed, which is atypical of a performer of his generation. His famous parodies cover the INS, low-pay food-service jobs, and youngsters deserting Mexican music in favor of rock & roll. His other new CD, Tacos for Two: Lalo Guerrero's Greatest Parodies (S.O.S. Records), features engaging, buoyant recent recordings of such favorites as "I Left My Car in San Francisco," "Tacos for Two" and "Mexican Mammas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Busboys." While Vamos shows his Cab CallowayonWhittier Boulevard side, Tacos is all charm and mischief, capturing the most overt components of Guerrero's personality.

Look, ! A black person!

The original dance hall building is lone gone; the Barrio Blue Moon web site has this to say:/p>

Barrio Blue Moon is one of Tucson's older neighborhoods and was named after the "Blue Moon Ballroom" a dance hall which opened in 1920 and was very popular until it burned down on March 16, 1947. Entertainers, Billy Eckstien, Paul Whitman and Tommy Dorsey performed at the "Blue Moon".

Many longtime residents recall dancing there which they describe as a large barn with wodden window flaps which were pulled up at night so the cooling air could enter. Bonnie Henry, from the Arizona Daily Star wrote a book about Tucson and included a chapter on the "Blue Moon Ballroom"

The lot next to the marketplace.

Billy Eckstine, mentioned by both Gloria Smith and the neighborhood association, was a jazz musician in the early to mid 20th Century, described on Wikipedia as:

Billy Eckstine (8 July 1914 – 8 March 1993), born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as William Clarence Eckstein. He was an American jazz singer and bandleader who also played trumpet, valve trombone, and guitar. He also performed briefly as Billy X. Stine. His nickname was Mr. B. Although best known as a singer, his openness to new music made him a strong influence on modern jazz, particularly bebop, as he gave employment to many of the musicians who founded the style.

And he performed in Tucson!

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